I don't think I ever posted a link to Twin Oaks Intentional Community. I think all of you might find it interesting, and there is a 3 week visitor program (I intially did that just out of curiosity, then stayed for the summer). It's been great during this course to have had this experience to tie a lot of the ideas to.
It was initially begun to simulate Walden 2, BF Skinner's book, but as it's a true democracy, its goals and workings have changed very organically over time. I could do a whole update about the community, and how much it represents the ideals of things (resilience especially comes to mind) that have come up repeatedly during the course. If I can remember enough things about the place, I will do a more full update, but I really encourage you to visit the link. It's what got me interested in all of the forms of shared housing (co-op, cohousing) that I have incorporated into my life plans.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Photographs from the Edible Schoolyard, New Orleans, main campus
It turns out I chose a great weekend to visit the Edible Schoolyard. This Saturday was their first "open garden" open to the school's parents, the neigborhood, and anyong who wanted to come. I went on a tour with the school chef.
The school is a charter school, K-8, opened last year (though the building had been a school for at least 50 years). They apparently have a second, smaller campus now, with 45 students, but I didn't see that one. Those are the basics.
The not-so-basics is that the majority of the school's lesson plans are based around food and gardening, with an emphasis on outdoor activities and classes. It really brought me back to my own experiences and memories of childhood at a New Orleans public school. By far, my most vivid memories are from lunchtime (not recess), field trips, and when we got to have class outside. (Also, one time that I stacked some books for my teacher really efficiently, but that doesn't apply here.) All of those things are all day every day at this school! If they can really manage to work in a regular curriculum on top of it, these kids are definitely going to be much more engaged than the average schoolchild.
Further thoughts that my visit engendered as photo captions below:
Most of the gardens are of edible foods. This is the herb garden, which was the first thing I saw upon entering. Apparently during the first year, before they were able to get much of the land workable, the kids asked if they could just start some raised gardens, and this was one of the pods that were completely student-initiated. That giant palm-looking plant in the back is lemongrass! My parents have one at their house, and they'd begun to doubt that lemongrass really got that big.
During the tour, which was mainly outside of the building, she mentioned that while there is tons of rennovations to be done inside and out, the priority for the school is rennovating the outside of the building first. First, obviously, because of the focus of the school on gardening. But before taking this course, I still would have found the painted external walls (like above) a little bit superficial. Now I recognize, and so does the school, how important the veneer is. The window frames are crumbling away, and the panes are nearly opaque with dust. But it's not depressing when all around it is a green and vibrant garden.
Another thought I had as I relived some of my own schooldays--how many recess playgrounds are just blacktop? Like melts-in-the-summer, burns-your-feet-through-your-rubber-soles blacktop? My sense is most urban ones anyway. How will kids ever appreciate unpaved earth if that's all they know, if that chemical tar smell is associated with the fun of recess? An ESY summer project was to replace the blacktop section with a brick courtyard, with spots for shade trees throughout. Again, even though I hadn't seen the original blacktop, I was amazed at how drastically the renovation must have improved the look and feel of the area.
My mom, who lives in the neighborhood, even noted how spruced up the neighborhood around had begun to look. Whereas most people don't really want to live near a school, this one seems to be a potential central point for the surrounding community.
They have plans to involved the surrounding community more. This open garden I attended was the first, but it will become a monthly tradition. They will also eventually participate in a nearby farmer's market with some of the kids. Since it's a charter school, anyone can attend it, but as they are getting better established, more kids from the nearby area have begun to attend this year.
Hmm...that photo ended up looking more like a prison yard than I intended. But I wanted to show a volunteer working in the garden alongside how urban the surrounding area is. During the tour, our guide said 98% of the students lived under the poverty line(!).
This is a vegetable garden. The guide pointed out that one grade planted it and the next class had to carry it out. This teaches an important lesson in patience and long-term investment in a project. But students would also learn the lesson that there is value in creating something even if you yourself can't use it. They in turn probably inherit projects that the class ahead of them started.
To me, the garden of plants not edible (to humans, anyway) has clear implications in teaching about ecology. And by extension, using Capra's analogy, communities. They can learn that pragmatism, with its focus on results and actions, does not have to be a focus on immediate results. There is both an aesthetic and critical importance to having certain insects in a garden.
___
Lastly, although I didn't get a picture to illustrate it, my favorite example of one of the community-building tools was for consensus. The faculty does aim to involve the kids in all aspects of the decision making, and while consensus would be particularly hard in a K-8 setting, there is at least some attempt at it. The scarecrow-making process tried to acommodate everyone's preferences. That's how they ended up with a policeman-scarecrow (with cheetah legs and a panther tail), and a soldier-scarecrow (holding a child, and with a clown's head). Scary...
The school is a charter school, K-8, opened last year (though the building had been a school for at least 50 years). They apparently have a second, smaller campus now, with 45 students, but I didn't see that one. Those are the basics.
The not-so-basics is that the majority of the school's lesson plans are based around food and gardening, with an emphasis on outdoor activities and classes. It really brought me back to my own experiences and memories of childhood at a New Orleans public school. By far, my most vivid memories are from lunchtime (not recess), field trips, and when we got to have class outside. (Also, one time that I stacked some books for my teacher really efficiently, but that doesn't apply here.) All of those things are all day every day at this school! If they can really manage to work in a regular curriculum on top of it, these kids are definitely going to be much more engaged than the average schoolchild.
Further thoughts that my visit engendered as photo captions below:
Most of the gardens are of edible foods. This is the herb garden, which was the first thing I saw upon entering. Apparently during the first year, before they were able to get much of the land workable, the kids asked if they could just start some raised gardens, and this was one of the pods that were completely student-initiated. That giant palm-looking plant in the back is lemongrass! My parents have one at their house, and they'd begun to doubt that lemongrass really got that big.
During the tour, which was mainly outside of the building, she mentioned that while there is tons of rennovations to be done inside and out, the priority for the school is rennovating the outside of the building first. First, obviously, because of the focus of the school on gardening. But before taking this course, I still would have found the painted external walls (like above) a little bit superficial. Now I recognize, and so does the school, how important the veneer is. The window frames are crumbling away, and the panes are nearly opaque with dust. But it's not depressing when all around it is a green and vibrant garden.
Another thought I had as I relived some of my own schooldays--how many recess playgrounds are just blacktop? Like melts-in-the-summer, burns-your-feet-through-your-rubber-soles blacktop? My sense is most urban ones anyway. How will kids ever appreciate unpaved earth if that's all they know, if that chemical tar smell is associated with the fun of recess? An ESY summer project was to replace the blacktop section with a brick courtyard, with spots for shade trees throughout. Again, even though I hadn't seen the original blacktop, I was amazed at how drastically the renovation must have improved the look and feel of the area.
My mom, who lives in the neighborhood, even noted how spruced up the neighborhood around had begun to look. Whereas most people don't really want to live near a school, this one seems to be a potential central point for the surrounding community.
They have plans to involved the surrounding community more. This open garden I attended was the first, but it will become a monthly tradition. They will also eventually participate in a nearby farmer's market with some of the kids. Since it's a charter school, anyone can attend it, but as they are getting better established, more kids from the nearby area have begun to attend this year.
Hmm...that photo ended up looking more like a prison yard than I intended. But I wanted to show a volunteer working in the garden alongside how urban the surrounding area is. During the tour, our guide said 98% of the students lived under the poverty line(!).
This is a vegetable garden. The guide pointed out that one grade planted it and the next class had to carry it out. This teaches an important lesson in patience and long-term investment in a project. But students would also learn the lesson that there is value in creating something even if you yourself can't use it. They in turn probably inherit projects that the class ahead of them started.
To me, the garden of plants not edible (to humans, anyway) has clear implications in teaching about ecology. And by extension, using Capra's analogy, communities. They can learn that pragmatism, with its focus on results and actions, does not have to be a focus on immediate results. There is both an aesthetic and critical importance to having certain insects in a garden.
___
Lastly, although I didn't get a picture to illustrate it, my favorite example of one of the community-building tools was for consensus. The faculty does aim to involve the kids in all aspects of the decision making, and while consensus would be particularly hard in a K-8 setting, there is at least some attempt at it. The scarecrow-making process tried to acommodate everyone's preferences. That's how they ended up with a policeman-scarecrow (with cheetah legs and a panther tail), and a soldier-scarecrow (holding a child, and with a clown's head). Scary...
from the drive
On the drive to New Orleans, I was listening to Stephen Covey's lectures of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I'd listened to it before, after getting over the impression that it was aimed at go-getter businessperson types. But re-listening to some of them in the car, I was struck with how so many of his ideas have the same goals of asset-building and highlight building social capital to realize a lot more goals than you can as individuals. If I had a print version of the book, it would be easier to reference, but the in a broad sense, the way he defines "habits" is the sustainability. It's the underying assets that you need in order to continually use without depleting. And his definition of "effective" could be interpreted as developing. Anyway, just part of the long drive...nothing I could use in a paper, just interesting how many places I've been seeing the same ideas, at their very basic, since starting this semester.
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